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Houghton Hall Park Scoops Another Award

Houghton Hall Park, a historic parkland site in Houghton Regis owned and managed by Central Bedfordshire Council, was recently given a ‘Highly Commended’ award in the ‘Biodiversity and Landscape Improvement’ category at the CPRE Living Countryside Awards. Despite its urban environment, the park is a haven for a range of wildlife due to careful habitat management.

Councillor Steven Watkins, Deputy Executive Member for Community Services - Libraries, Leisure and Countryside at Central Bedfordshire Council, said: “Houghton Hall Park has a range of habitats, including grasslands, scrub and woodlands. With so many habitats in a relatively small area, it makes for a rich diversity of wildlife. We are indebted to the Friends of Houghton Hall Park who help us to manage these habitats through regular working parties. They keep the parkland at its best and ensure a rich biodiversity for all to enjoy.

“The park has been transformed to meet the needs of a growing community, whilst retaining its valuable heritage and other unique features. It is now accessible for all via a network of surfaced pathways.”

Meadow at Houghton Hall Park. Photo: A D Winter 2018

The grasslands at Houghton Hall Park are home to a range of wildflowers, including cowslips and oxeye daisies, which attract insects such as bees and butterflies ranging from meadow browns, marbled whites to large skippers. The scrubby areas and hedgerows are good for birds, especially summer visitors such as blackcaps and whitethroats. The woods make great habitats for muntjac deer and grey squirrels, and for birds such as nuthatches, great spotted woodpeckers and chiffchaffs. Blackbirds, wrens, great tits, robins and song thrushes add their voices during the spring and summer.

Conservation activities have included hazel coppicing and using the cut branches to create a fort-building zone where children can use their imagination to play. As well assisting with the natural environment, a group of around 20 local volunteers have helped to create the kitchen gardens whose produce is used by the park café to make homemade meals. They have also grown pumpkins for this Sunday’s Halloween pumpkin painting event at the park.

In 2015, the council was awarded £2.2million from the Heritage and Big Lottery Fund as part of its ‘Parks for People’ grant scheme to transform the park and build a visitor centre for community use. The centre is free to visit, has free parking (for three hours) and is open all year. It is also fully accessible, including an accessible toilet.

With such a small team of staff on the ground, Houghton Hall Park would not be what it is today without the enthusiasm, dedication of time, skill and efforts of a group of around 20 local volunteers who have contributed in various ways.

When it comes to volunteers and the North Chilterns, could you meet a finer body of men and women with time on their hands, a sense of purpose, and a desire and willingness to keep the countryside accessible?

It's inevitable that nature will always try to claim back what belongs to nature, and will grow its trees to try to recover the path made by humans, or through decay cause its tree limbs and bushes to block the way for the intrepid lover of nature walks.

So it was that 17 volunteers from the Chilterns Society met up at the Fancott Pub, Toddington, and divided into 2 groups last week for the second session to clear nearby public footpaths.

Phil, Sylvia, John, Jonathan W, Martin, Yvette, Greg, Simon, Chris, Linda and Ian all went to Chalton village about 1 mile further on from the Fancott to work on the path begun 4 weeks earlier but from the opposite end. This involved a lot of overhead branches to be cut, and branches of fallen trees at the side to cut back so as not to be …

Two more of my books are now available on Amazon and again all royalties will go to good causes.

'My First Four Lives' is an autobiography covering the first 35 years of my life which spanned the 1940s -1970s. It includes growing up in Houghton Regis, life at the School on the Green and at Dunstable Grammar, working for the Meteorological Office at Dunstable and elsewhere and eventually my life as a police officer in Huntingdonshire and West Wales. £8.99.

There are detailed descriptions of Houghton Regis and its characters as I knew them and some unique photographs.

Included in the second part of the book I reveal the guilty secret behind the arrest of the Phantom Thumper, the …

World War I, also known as the first World War or The Great War, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from the 28th of July 1914 to the 11th November 1918.

Socially and politically it was described as the “war to end all wars”, more than 70 million personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history.

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HM Lord-Lieutenant of Bedfordshire Helen Nellis was delighted to support the international commemoration marking 100 years since the guns fell silent at the end of World War One. On Sunday, 11 November 2018, the Lord-Lieutenant, Vice Lord-Lieutenant and Deputy Lieutenants across the County of Bedfordshire attended and laid poppy wreaths at 23 Remembrance Services in the morning.

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Events began nationally at 6:00am with over 1,000 lone pipers playing Battle’s O’er, a traditional Scottish air played after a battle, outside cathedrals and other individual locations throughout the country and overseas, fo…